Issues

Summary: David McClay – recipient of the 2016 Society for Developmental Biology Lifetime Achievement Award – talks to us about his career, his research with sea urchins, and his thoughts on mentorship.

Summary: This Hypothesis article poses that EMT and collective migration can be viewed as extreme cases of a general continuum, with cells displaying arrays of epithelial and mesenchymal features, and migratory behaviours.

Summary: This Review article discusses how cell fate decisions in development are linked to the cell cycle, and the key molecular components thereof.

Highlighted article: DNA damage disrupts stem cell self-renewal and differentiation in a CHK2 kinase-dependent manner, which may be due to reduced BMP signaling and cell adhesion in the Drosophila ovary.

Highlighted article: AP-1 activates the expression of vascular genes in hemogenic endothelial cells and is required for de novo binding of the Hippo signaling transcription factor TEAD4.

Highlighted article: In mouse hemogenic endothelium, SOX7 inhibits the expression of RUNX1 target genes by directly interacting with RUNX1 and inhibiting its transcriptional activity.

Summary: Osteoblast specification requires regulatory inputs from BMP2 at the Runx2/Osx1 transition by a mechanism that is not compensated for by canonical Wnt signaling and involves Grhl3.

Summary: A broad repertoire of conventional human ESCs and transgene-independent iPSC lines can be reverted to stable naive states using WNT, MEK/ERK and tankyrase inhibition.

Summary: Progenitor cells isolated from different regions of the inner ear show distinct capacities for differentiation, acquiring phenotypic properties of their respective compartments of origin.

Summary: Adult c-KIT⁺ olfactory basal stem cells may be propagated as expansion-competent BMI1⁺ progenitors in culture and provide insight into olfactory homeostasis.

Highlighted article: Novel optimized inducible knockdown and knockout platforms are developed and used to assess gene function in human pluripotent stem cells and their differentiated progeny.

Summary: CRF2, CRF3 and CRF6 are required to regulate PIN1 expression in the inflorescence and this regulation is necessary for correct pistil elongation and ovule number.

Summary: During cucumber female flower development, ovaries produce the gibberellin precursor GA₉, which is translocated to the sepal/petals and converted into bioactive GA₄.

Highlighted article: Phenotypic variation in zebrafish mef2ca mutants is due to cells switching fate, from ligament to bone, possibly as a result of variable transposon epigenetic silencing.

Highlighted article: Perturbation of syndecan 4 in mouse embryos reveals a new mechanism of fluid shear stress-mediated signaling involving syndecan 4-dependent upregulation of the PCP protein Vangl2.

Summary: The histone demethylase IBM1 regulates Arabidopsis stomatal development by suppressing DNA methylation on the gene body region of ERECTA receptors.

Summary: Analysis of a hypomorphic Six3 allele reveals that variability in Six3 dosage is sufficient to generate mice exhibiting a spectrum of holoprosencephaly forms in a non-strain-specific manner.

Summary: Elav – the canonical Drosophila marker for post-mitotic neurons – has a previously unrecognized component of ubiquitous expression that is suppressed by the microRNA pathway, including by miR-279/996.

Summary: The fecundity of unisexual whiptail lizards is similar to bisexual relatives despite pseudo-tetraploid oocytes being exceedingly rare and diploid oocytes failing to proceed past the pairing stage of meiosis.

Summary: Dorsal raphe neurons in mice exhibit functionally significant heterogeneity that is established early during their differentiation via the actions of Gata2 and Gata3.

Summary: Loss of filamin and formin causes multiple developmental defects, highlighting roles for these two proteins in Wnt signaling, Lrp6 endocytosis, Gsk3 activation and target gene expression.

Summary: The analysis of Shh signaling, Fgf8 signaling and Bmp4 expression dynamics in cavefish embryos reveals subtle modifications in these pathways that lead to a change in lens versus olfactory fate.

Summary: The analysis of chromatin landscapes, complemented by a machine learning approach, identifies active promoters and enhancers in Drosophila cardiomyocytes, including many new enhancers and their associated transcription factor motifs.

Summary: In developing Drosophila wings, the apical determinant Crumbs stabilises the Notch receptor on apical membranes via direct interaction between their extracellular domains.